Too late to helpFederal aid is finally available, but many homeowners in Galveston have already spent their savings or just given up

HARVEY RICE, HOUSTON CHRONICLE |
January 31, 2010

James Hair works on what will be a centerpiece for a counter at his sister Tanya Fabian's house in Bayou Shores. The siblings have dipped into their savings in order to bring the home back into shape after it was destroyed during Hurricane Ike.

Photo By Julio Cortez/Chronicle

Esmeralda Banda is one of may Bayou Shores residents who say they won't be able to take advantage of federal aid that has finally become available this month.

Photo By Julio Cortez/Chronicle

Esmeralda Banda is one of may Bayou Shores residents who say they won't be able to take advantage of federal aid that has finally become available this month.

Photo By Julio Cortez/Chronicle

Bayou Shores neighborhood features homes that were rebuilt at ground level, instead of being newly elevated on piers. Some residents worry that the jumble of elevated and one-story homes will affect property values.

GALVESTON — To fully grasp the impact of Hurricane Ike on Galveston's Bayou Shores neighborhood, just walk through this community at night. The streets are darker. Fewer people venture out at night since the storm.

This is the consequence of a large number of empty homes remaining in a neighborhood flooded with as much as 8 feet of storm water after Ike.

“We referred to this neighborhood as a ghost town for the first year after the storm,” said Tanya Fabian, 51, who expects to move into her rebuilt Bayou Shores home in a few weeks. “It's scary at night.”

Nearly a year and four months since Ike nearly swallowed Galveston Island, many property owners have either abandoned their homes or are still struggling to finish repairs so they can return.

Federal money to assist homeowners is only now becoming available, far too late for many. The problems facing the neighborhood are typical of other neighborhoods on the island, where about 75 percent of all buildings suffered storm damage.

Bayou Shores sits at the edge of English Bayou, on the east side of 61st Street. Most tourists exit Interstate 45 at the 61st Street exit and see Bayou Shores homes on their left lining English Bayou as they drive toward the beach. Before the storm, expensive houses lined the shore. A block inland, low- and middle-income housing predominated in a neighborhood with a large Hispanic population.

A drive down Broadway, the main thoroughfare, or Seawall Boulevard along the beach can give a false impression that the island is back to normal. But inside some of the harder hit neighborhoods like Bayou Shores, the vacant houses reflect the reality that about 20 percent of the pre-Ike population of 57,000 has not returned.

Many of those homes were abandoned because of extensive damage or because the owners lacked insurance.

The city is doing a survey of vacant and abandoned houses that is partially complete, but it's certain that the number is in the hundreds, city spokeswoman Alicia Cahill said. On one street in Bayou Shores ­the city counted 14 abandoned homes.

“There is just a new normal,” Galveston architect Brax Easterwood said. “That neighborhood won't be the way it was before Ike.”

Cahill said the city is concerned that the abandoned houses will lower property values, become eyesores or attract the homeless or stray animals. “They invite mischief,” she said.

The city has hired additional zoning inspectors to enforce city codes to keep the houses from becoming eyesores and may use part of a recent $160 million federal housing grant to buy up some of the properties, Cahill said.

‘Too little, too late'

Most of the $160 million that became available this month is to help homeowners rebuild.

“For me it's too late,” said Esmeralda Banda, 40. Like many Bayou Shores residents, a year was too long to wait for the federal money.

Chula Sanchez, a member of the city recovery committee, got the same reaction when she went door to door in the neighborhood to let residents know that federal money would be available. “The comment was, ‘It's too little, too late,'” she said.

Cahill acknowledged that the money was late in coming, but said the federal bureaucracy moves slowly and there was nothing city officials could do to hasten its approval.

As the city's request for the money inched through the system, homes were abandoned or sold in some instances. Others, faced with mortgage payments, borrowed money, used their retirement money or called on friends, neighbors and family to help rebuild.

For those who dug deep into their own pockets, there will be no relief. Cahill said the federal money won't repay their expenses.

The money could help Gloria and Louis Castillo, both 72, who exhausted their retirement savings and money from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Despite those expenditures, their house is barely livable. The house has plywood floors, no doors for some rooms and warped door frames.

Affluent hurt, too

The houses of the affluent suffered just as much. Don Mafridge is president of the English Bayou Homeowners Association, made up of homeowners who live near English Bayou. The association hasn't met since the storm because so few home-owners are left. Where elegant houses once stood along the shore before the hurricane, now only empty lots remain.

The lack of trees is noticeable throughout the neighborhood. Saltwater from the storm killed an estimated 40,000 trees throughout the city, including the stately oaks that once lined Bayou Shore Drive.

Another striking feature of the neighborhood is the numerous homes newly elevated on piers sitting next to homes rebuilt at ground level.

“I think at the outset it's going to be very strange,” Mafridge said about people seeing the neighborhood for the first time. “It's somewhat uncomfortable for a single-story home next to a home that's 12-foot high,” he said.

Mafridge worries that the oddity will affect property values or discourage buyers.

Easterwood said some of the $160 million in federal money is earmarked for community planning that could find ways to compensate for the jumble of elevated and one-story houses.